Former RI chief to chair online media currency initiative

UK-- Mark Cranmer has been named chairman of the Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems (Jicims) as it strives to get final agreements in place to pursue its ambition of a common planning currency for online media.

Cranmer – a former CEO of Research International and Starcom EMEA – takes on the part-time role at what he describes as “a critical stage” in the evolution of the committee's research proposition.

Although a request for proposals went out in March as a first step towards the creation of an industry-agreed online audience measurement system, there remains some debate between media owners, advertisers and agencies about the final form this should take.

Funding arrangements are also still being thrashed out – particularly how the burden should be split between the buy- and sell-side. Typically media owners stump up most of the cash, with agencies contributing the remainder.

One of Cranmer's first tasks will be to chair a summit at the end of September bringing together the four Jicims shareholders – the Internet Advertising Bureau, the Association of Online Publishers, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers – and their various stakeholders to resolve these and other “outstanding issues”.

Guy Phillipson, CEO of the Internet Advertising Bureau, said: “At this stage it's vital that advertisers, agencies and media owners are aligned to the requirements and funding for Jicims. Mark is just the man to bring these parties together for a positive conclusion.”

In a statement, Cranmer said: “I'm looking forward to working with the board and industry stakeholders to clarify whether the Jicims vision can be bought to reality and serve the industry effectively as the internet becomes a more pivotal part of the communications landscape for brands.

“With this objective I am hoping we can bring the industry parties together to reach a definitive conclusion within 2008.”

Jicims has seven proposals on the table from media research agencies, who were asked in March to submit ideas for a user-centric measurement approach that produces audience size and profile data for a “significant” number of online media, as well as the means to estimate audiences across a number of sites.

A formal invitation to tender is the next step, which Jicims general manager Peter Bowman expects to be “contemporaneous” with the stakeholder summit.

Author: Brian Tarran